I don’t have much for religious nuttery this week because I thought we’d focus on our other topics more but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of religious nonsense going on. For that stuff you can go and check out any number of great podcasts I personally enjoy The Scathing Atheist, the Legion of Reason and Waiting for Wrath.

Skepticism 101 part 4

We covered what skepticism is, what logical fallacies are, and a bit about cognitive biases. I want to cover a couple more broad topics over the next couple episodes and then we can start being more detailed with our examination of logical fallacies, cognitive biases and good methods of being a skeptic. This episode we’re going to cover whether we can trust our brains or not.

Can we trust our brains? We should’ve covered this when Mike was here but our shabby version of things will have to suffice.

I’ve read Mistakes were made but not by me by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson and I’ve read Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman but I’m far from well versed in the subject. We should’ve covered this last time when Mike was here.

Brilliant book that discusses cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias and a variety of other biases that can make us adjust our narrative so that we’re never wrong, never the bad guy and always believed what we believe now.

The central thesis is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The book delineates cognitive biases associated with each type of thinking, starting with Kahneman's own research on loss aversion. From framing choices to people's tendency to substitute an easy-to-answer question for one that is harder, the book highlights several decades of academic research to suggest that people place too much confidence in human judgment.

Every single book on skepticism, every talk, every course and every podcast worth its salt has pointed out at one point or another that we cannot trust our brains. The brain is terrible at letting us know what is real, what we see and what we remember.
Patternicity, framing, and a variety of other thinking patterns stop us from seeing the world as it really is.

What does that mean for a skeptic?
It means we need verifiable scientific evidence for everything before reaching a conclusion or before believing something.

Atheism For Dummies

What does being an atheist actually say about your other views? Anything? Does it make us lean towards some type of humanism or does it make us more empirically minded?

Music break three songs-best god in show by NOFX, Carnivore by Starset, and Beast Within by In This Moment

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